French Directory

The French Directory was the oligarchic government that ruled over the French First Republic from 2 November 1795 to 10 November 1799. The directory was established in the place of the Committee of Public Safety, which had lost its power in the government as a result of the Thermidorian Reaction of July 1794. Paul Barras was the de facto leader of France from 1795 to 1799, as he was the only director to serve during the entire term of the oligarchy, and the directory was ruled by the conservative Thermidorians, who opposed both the monarchist Legitimists and the liberal Jacobins. After the Thermidorian Reaction, the Directory stopped mass executions and relaxed measures taken against Catholic priests and emigres, and the government crushed the Jacobins and Francois-Noel Babeuf's socialist group. After discovering that Council of Five Hundred leader Jean-Charles Pichegru was an Austrian ally, however, the Directory showed its dark side in the Coup of 18 Fructidor, exiling the Royalist leaders to French Guiana. In 1799, the bickering directory was overthrown in the Coup of 18 Brumaire, a military coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte with support from consuls Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes and Roger Ducos.